Congress Wants to Mandate Fluorescent Lightbulbs

The Wall Street Journal is carrying this story, but unfortunately their site is subscription-based, so I'm going to have to link you to this post on conservative blog Hot Air. While I don't agree with much of the commentary in that post, I do agree that I don't want the federal government regulating which light bulbs I can use.

The reasoning behind this is clear and admittedly well-intentioned: help save the environment by using more energy-efficient lighting. I don't doubt that getting every home in the country on more energy-efficient fluorescent lighting would save us a crapload of energy and probably cut down on greenhouse gas emissions because power plants would have to produce less power; that outcome actually seems both likely and laudable to me. And despite the Hot Air poster's assertion that the market should take care of light bulb choice, I don't think it would do so on any kind of reasonable timeline (or even at all), both because people don't know that regular light bulbs are so inefficient and because, despite their benefits to the environment, fluorescent bulbs are more expensive to buy. This means that consumers are both uninformed and expected to internalize negative externalities, and the market really don't work well in those cases. But the fact that I like the goal doesn't mean I have to agree with the decision.

I mean, light bulbs? I can't use what kind of light bulbs I want? I'm sorry, but there's a line between how gas-efficient the federal government requires industry-made automobiles to be and how energy-efficient I'm federally required to be in my private life that seems pretty obvious to me. How about instead of a mandate like that we prod consumers to switch by having a big ad campaign to inform people about the consequences of regular bulbs and giving tax incentives to people who replace their regular bulbs with fluorescent ones? I'm all for using better light bulbs and helping the environment, but I'm also all for the government not cutting into my private life as much as possible.

But apparently private decisions concerning arrangements in the home are within the legitimate political realm if it's thought they could have some kind of beneficial external effect. I don't know if this is a slippery slope, but it does make it awfully difficult to distinguish things that most of us would find repellent. For example, could the government demand that everything in your house be either recyclable or biodegradable? Could it require people who could walk to their destination to do so instead of driving? Or to take a non-climate change example, let's imagine we're in a pre-Lawrence v. Texas world; could the Congress pass a law making gay actions in the private home illegal because many people think that allowing homosexuality has a negative impact on the family and the country? I'm not sure if a valid distinction can be made there.

I wish I knew more about environmental law; I just don't know where the government finds the constitutional authority to do stuff like mandating light bulb usage or confiscating privately-owned land where some endangered species lives. Interstate commerce seems pretty unlikely, maybe the police power? I guess the goal is protecting the public welfare by helping out the environment, but isn't there some test or something there? Man, I should have paid attention in ConLaw.